Life in Jinhua

A friend of mine wrote me an email the other day, at the bottom of the note it read "When is the last time you did something for the first time?" It got me thinking, and the answer surprised me, every single day.  This blog is dedicated to a year of firsts.  A year of exploring new places, in a new country as a brand new teacher.

Riding a scooter, well it was not the first time, actually the first time was with Gareth in Victoria, BC, however the scooter riding here is a little different.  With Solomon as the driver, I feel pretty safe, he is on year three in Jinhua, and has some experience in the rules of the road (yes, surprisingly I think there are rules). More to come on our passing through intersections on bicycles.

There is beauty to be found here in Jinhua.  This is the path we  have been taking on our bicycle's to get to the middle of town.  It is quiet..ish, the entire path is along the river and it does not feel like there are two million people sharing the same space together.  There are always people walking and enjoying the beauty of Jinhua.

This is where we went to enjoy a massage for 40RMB, which is about seven Canadian dollars.  I'm sure my massage friends in Canada will not be handing out massages in China anytime soon.  I  love all of the side streets in China. Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, I am seeing things for the first time. It is a bit overwhelming, and with me staring at everything, and people staring at me, it has lead to some near crashes on my bike, and on foot!

MY NEW BIKE!!! Oh My goodness I am so excited to have a bike here in Jinhua.  Our camps is quite far out of town (not really, but cabbies think so and they will not come out here to pick us up). It takes about twenty minutes to bike in, and you can ride along that awesome path in the earlier photo.  It gives me the freedom I need to be able to get around and do little things, like drink coffee at Amy's, or go to Century Mart to purchase peanut butter.  

A walk in the park.  Here is a random, well I'm not sure what exactly its purpose is, however it looks very Chinese and I thought I would take a photo in front of it. 

KTV, aka Karaoke.  Very popular here in China.  I cannot even begin to explain the experience here.  It was definitely not something I had experienced before.  There were automatic flushing squat toilets, crazy pink walls, and happy birthday signs in the room we rented.  Yes, you rent a room and sing badly translated English songs with your friends.  So crazy.  But, again a first experience! 

My first Ouch in Jinhua.  A badly stubbed toe during a skype conversation with Bucky and Maca. What the heck was I thinking?! Oh right, I was running to get my coffee.  Very important.